Anti-blog

CAP ANDY NOW

ADwARS I, which accompanied the university advertising class which I ran at Sciences-Po (Paris) until 2009, has come to an end. This one-year-plus experiment showed that the internet can be, at the very least, a highly useful pedagogical tool for university students and teacher.

However, serious reflection on the medium of the blog "ex-faculty" is required, due to the virtual nullification it engenders by its massive usage, in terms of the production of meaning. The unfortunate truth is that the blog, Facebook and Twitter have become a 'must' for any self-respecting young person using the Internet. And that the resulting low quality and interest value of many blog posts is manifest. Not information, just attempted communication. We must therefore reflect as to the next step for ADWARS.

To sum up, it is ever more strongly my belief, especially in the light of the severe ongoing global financial and economic crisis, that the advertising industry must equally be regulated and made more responsible, at the European level for a start. It must be regulated in the same way as banks require quite strict controls on their activity, for Man, though a creative animal, is also first irrational, individualistic and destructive in the absence of clear rules. You have only to experience crowd behaviour first-hand or observe driving attitudes on French roads to know what I am talking about...

Advertising's tendency will always be to cross that double yellow line at some point, so in the absence of speed cameras, we need legislation. And certainly not self-regulation, which is like asking the fox to run the chicken-coop.

Regulation is mandatory due to the fact that this particular industry remains :

- highly influential within the (capitalist) system
- intertwined incestuously with modern media, themselves powerful tools of opinion-making
- fundamentally morally and socially irresponsible if left unregulated

Of course, although advertising does provide certain direct (information) and indirect benefits (see Part 1 of this blog) to our societies, it remains a powerful moral, political and societal force, which if not questioned and controlled by an independent authority, could come to exert a totalitarian influence over any society, a 'Big Brother' with a fat wallet and a heavy hand.

The image that I have chosen above (a French ad for 'Handicap International') symbolises my view of the current situation in most Western societies, i.e. the dependence felt and the handicap undergone by whole populations under the sway of this massively influential industry, with little intellectual or moral opposition, driven by uncontrolled mass consumerism.

Let us all remain vigilant.

WATCH THIS (MIND)SPACE

Photo supplied by Pedro


Sell that available grey matter now !!






STUDENT critiques of advertising

- misleads consumers with the tactic of "individualisation" or of "developing personal identity", while actually selling the same stuff to everyone. In the end, we are all alike (Mariana)

- can damage consumers' brains with repetition (we are already lacking storage space for important information/memory... why bother with jingles or slogans ? (Mariana)

- can fool the audience through deceptive, commercial tricks...(Alexandre, Gabriella, Pierre)

- consistently increases people's needs, making the society increasingly materialistic (Alexandre, Maëva, Sophie, Etienne, Gabriella)

- leads to clichés: they reinforce stereotypes or even create new ones which
are quickly imprinted onto the minds of consumers and the general public. These are highly difficult to suppress again (Stefan)

- creates new 'must-buys': people desire to possess what they see on the screen. Viewers emulate the role models of TV, leading to pressure, for instance on women with respect to cosmetics (Stefan)

- annoys: the spot for a new chocolate bar interrupts the exciting crime thriller right before the brave Inspector arrests the murderer ! (Stefan, Pedro)

- can lead to mass alienation as it drives us to want/like the same things (Romain, Mariana)

- appeals deliberately to our subconscious and not our conscious mind, so it may make us consume more than economically reasonable. Homo economicus loses his rationality, which is dangerous for our all-capitalist model (cf. sub-prime crisis)(Romain, Sophie)

- informs us, but it gives us biased information on products (Romain)

- admittedly not an exclusive effect of advertising (TV, in general, has this effect on people), but it is particularly explicit in ads: advertising integrates/assimilates any subversive behavior within society. Products stop being subversive and become merely goods to be consumed (Tamia)

- follows the mainstream, rarely challenging one's views and opinions (except Benetton ads). In our non-religious societies (NB. ah !), have you EVER seen an ad remotely sympathetic to religion ? Apart from French monks always presented as big eaters, you never see ads about Judaïsm or Islam (hot themes, one guesses) (Farida)

- provides quite a precise model of what is "good taste", according to the advertiser and mainstream society, so if you don't have the same sense of beauty, you're "out" ! (Farida)

- makes one feel like one absolutely needs such and such a product to be "in", which is especially harmful for children, for whom it is very hard to be seen to be different. Most adults too (Farida)

- if advertising creates in society a sense of unity (references, language...), it by definition expels/marginalises other people from this "community" (Farida)

- contributes to losing the very richness of human existence (arts, literature, music...), due to its inherent simplification process. Proust wrote seven amazing books ("In Search of Time Lost") in the hope that he could restore and reproduce just a small part of Life's lost moments. Ads are mere non-ambitious products from non-ambitious people who think they can reproduce the richness of life. What a joke! (Farida)

- is intrinsically intrusive: it affects everybody, even those who wish to avoid
it (Pedro)

- encourages a monopolistic/oligarchic view of society by creating a vicious circle: those with more money are able to produce more ads and therefore make more money (Pedro)

- the citizen may possibly be affected and misled by unreliable information in ads (Pedro, Aurore)

- may encourage people to adopt lifestyles which are not recommendable from a health perspective (Pedro olé !)

(Minor elements):
- frequently imprints an extremely irritating song or catchphrase in your head for weeks (even months some times)(Pedro)
- it is the reason why watching a 2-hour movie on TV normally ends up taking 3 hours (Pedro)

- in economics, the 'public choice' school explains that public regulation is bad, to the extent that it encourages the development of lobbying, which is a financial waste for the society ; one can make a parallel between public regulation and capitalism, and thus, between
lobbying and advertising: advertising can equally be seen as a waste of money, money which could be used to encourage innovation for example, or to lower the price of products (Emilie)

- as advertisements have to swiftly get to the point, they generally convey a traditional, not to say conservative and non-diverse image of people, according to their age, their gender, their ethnic origin, their role within the family (washing powder commercials always show mothers, why ? In terms of gender, are we still in the '60s ?)(Emilie)

- when there is nothing interesting on TV, commercials incite students to keep watching instead of going to bed ("Gosh, 3 A.M. already ?") or doing their English homework (for instance...). Commercials lead to procrastination, and that's baaaaaaaaaad; the truth is, advertising is evil (Emiliiiiiiie !)

- conveys prejudices, particularly concerning women who are reduced to their role of mothers, housewives or to their attributes. They are shown/exhibited as sexual objects (Aurore)

- ads' excesses hold up an image of a consumer-crazy society. "I consume, therefore I am" would be our slogan (Aurore)

- promotes superficiality and materialism in individuals, since it tends to create new desires. Furthermore, these desires cannot be met or satisfied as easily as needs, demonstrating that advertising plays on this human weakness (Maëva, Aurore)

- widens the gap between rich and poor: not everybody can afford to buy all the products promoted by advertising, creating envy, jealousy, resentment. And materialistic values (Maëva, Sophie)

- relies on an unsustainable model of economic development insofar as its purpose is to keep on selling more and more products. If emerging and developed countries continue in this direction in food management, crises and starvation riots might result (Maëva)

- tends to encourage deviant behavior (obesity in children and teens who watch television while consuming products promoted by TV advertising (Maëva)

- promotes an ideal world that does not reflect reality (perfect young women/men, wealth, cars, houses etc.) and is based on lies (anti-wrinkle creams, slimming products etc.)(Maëva)

- relies on a short-term strategy, equivalent to a time-bomb, as advertising needs to multiply in different media (TV, radio, street) in order to sell: who has never been bored by an advertisement that 'pollutes' our daily life ? (Maëva)

- tends to speak down to consumers ("'Panier de Yoplait' is MORE than a yoghurt'!)(Maëva)

- elicits choices based on an "emotional need", rather than a rational one (Sophie)

- is a very expensive and ineffective form of communication, esp. if the target group has been improperly identified (Sophie, Pierre) or can be a poor return on investment in some media (Pierre)

- imposes a model of society based on consumption, even though people may be happier being with their friends and their families at home than shopping in malls. It imposes the concept of "work more, get more" (as Sarkozy said) to be able to afford a Rolex by age 50 (dixit Séguela)(Etienne)
  
- has changed Descartes' axiom, which is no longer "I think, therefore I am", but "I HAVE, therefore I am", which is a big step backward for society, whose primary aim should probably be to have citizens able to think by themselves (Etienne)
 
- contributes, by the plethora of products consumed, to the destruction of our environment (Etienne, Gabriella)
 
- confuses the hierarchy on TV between "film", "documentary" and "advertising", which could be problematical (Etienne)

- due to its short format, presents only shallow feelings, oversimplifying life and influencing our views because of the volume we are exposed to every day. It suppresses the reality of deeper meanings and emotions (Lola, Gabriella)

- takes advantage of our natural weaknesses and basic instincts (the desire to be popular, pretty, rich…), because these are the easiest to exploit (Lola)

- imposes a vision of happiness attainable only through the satisfaction of an endless line of immediate desires and gets in the way of real personal achievement (Lola)

- creates inferiority complexes and ultimately unhappiness for the person unable to attain the obligation of resemblance to the standards imposed by advertising (i.e. because of financial or physical divergence from the norm) (Lola)

- promotes capitalist and consumerist values ; emphasizes ephemeral values in general (Gabriella)

- can exert a negative influence on vulnerable, immature audiences, like children and teenagers (Gabriella)

- visually pollutes the environment (Gabriella, Etienne)

- can transmit excessively violent and sexual messages (Gabriella)

- tends to immediately increase the consumption of substances like alcohol and tobacco (Pierre)

END

Thanks to all for your individual brilliance !

VAMPIRE QUE TOUT ?

Where teacher and students list the demerits of advertising






TEACHER'S LIST

Major drawbacks of advertising

- as the main locomotive of growth in capitalist economies, constitutes a threat to the ecology of the planet due to the wasteful practices it induces

- constructs, especially via TV/video/film advertising, an illusory world for millions of poorer viewers worldwide (but so do Bollywood, Hollywood, video games...)

- constructs a false paradigm of normative happiness/contentment/security/physical appearance etc. in the nations where it thrives (societal formatting)

- using simplistic (national)stereotypes or caricature based on ignorance, reduces the potential understanding between neighbouring peoples (say) of Europe and increases the future risk of misunderstanding or conflict between such nations

- by recourse to persistent repetition of messages in every media (esp. in the West), constitutes an attempted form of brainwashing of the population

- despite controls over the years, has tended to use questionable psychological and ethical techniques in order to persuade public opinion (psychoanalysis (E. Bernays), subliminal messages, hidden cameras in Paris street billboards...)

- addresses itself to children first when pertinent, playing on their doubts, fears and deep psychological needs (need for love, protection (Ronald McDonald ?), social acceptance (Barbie ?)

- by its very omnipresence, obliterates other forms of socially useful communication and information, creating a non-choice situation (say for food) for U.S citizens ('oh well, let's just go to Burger King' (sigh, what else is there ?)


Minor drawbacks

- tends with its billboards, to uglify and clutter the urban environment

- risks causing road accidents due to driver inattention because of its large hoardings along local and national roads

- in some countries, damages the film experience on TV or at the cinema with its advertising breaks or its heavy pre-film barrage of spots

- rather than inform the reader/viewer on the product's qualities, speaks more of brand image or post-purchase brand experience

- often tends to twist/omit/ignore the facts in its messages, favorising emotion, manipulative humour and the instrumentalisation of human foibles (fear, social envy, greed...); 'touches up' photos and images to glamourise reality

- according to the product or service, frequently aims for the lowest common denominator of PR (using kids' voices on radio, testimonials...)


STUDENTS' LIST COMING SOON

* See next post please

JUST PUT THE CROC DOWN THE TOILET !

But it's grown too big, Daddy !


* As we continue our bold, perspicacious journey through ADLAND, we have charted some of the territory of what once was a cute, lizard-like little creature and has now become a giant, dangerous man-eater (sorry about the metaphor, Romain)

* This is perhaps why it was possible to identify in our previous post several meritorious aspects to advertising; the more they are traditional, the more they seem positive. As we say, we are not against advertising as such, as it does still fulfill certain requirements of service technologies in the modern world in terms of communication, information and creativity

* There is nevertheless a but. Why are they asking us to swim in the pond, when we know there is a crocodile in there ? This is not a problem for some, who claim indestructibility, but can we all ?

* The next post, where we will attempt to list the demerits of the advertising industry, will soon be filled in equally by my students' ideas, with brilliant additions from the teacher. Note that the previous 'FOR' post has also seen changes originating from my students (see 23/04/09 post)



A suivre...

A (LITTLE) GU...ESS IS GOOD FOR YOU

Love your adman as you would yourself !

* We now come to a significant moment in our exploration of the ins and outs of this fascinating field of economic endeavour, namely, the advertising industry. How heartless we have indeed shown ourselves in our relentless criticism of the feckless, irresponsible adman ! The poor creature is just doing his job after all. Some of us would be quite happy to be appointed head of marketing for a dogfood company or a laxative product. “Hey, Mary, I've just been made marketing head of Poopy laxatives !! It's all downhill from here, baby ! Hold the Brussel sprouts !“ How cruel of us.

* As people tend to regard them favourably, let us establish an open list as to the merits and demerits of an advertising industry in any given developed country. We are dealing in macro terms here, in order to stimulate debate.

* The advantages of the list are to allow one to quickly group elements in a visibly accessible form, without having to write 20 pages of text. It is also undeniable that one of the consequences of the immediacy of information-retrieval on the Internet may indeed be that of consequent superficiality. So be it. Lists, while condensed, thus non-exhaustive, do however provoke thought, discussion and opposing views, all healthy.

* We leave aside here the debate on State advertising, which can touch on propaganda - term interestingly enough, coined by the Roman Catholic church to designate its early missionary activities. We will include, on the other hand, advertising for worthy causes and for public service announcements such as road safety, HIV-AIDS, alcohol abuse etc.


ARGUMENTS FOR ADVERTISING


Major Elements

- Serves as the locomotive to propel or the lubricant to grease (choose your metaphor), the capitalist consumer society

- Erects an ideal model of societal values through pedagogical universality and ubiquity (socialising role)

- Favorises a materialist, individualistic form of societal behaviour, thereby opposing spirituality, collectivism and fanaticism

- Furnishes, through identification, sub-conscious dreams or life solutions to consumers (escapism, see also religion)

- Proposes immortality through obedience (the dead don't earn)

- Adapts swiftly and remorselessly to deep societal changes (no-change is good, change is good)

- Suggests, per purchase, a series of mini-templates for happiness/ contentment/ satisfaction (if you buy...then you will...)

- Elicits in consumers, feelings of rivalry/ envy, which may be economically productive (I want one like that too...)


Minor Elements

- Displays, shows and pre-informs on the supply of products and services on offer to consumers

- In so doing, facilitates consumer choice at POS (Point of sale) by packaging recognition

- Recognises and thus psychologically encourages and supports economic target groups (children, bank loan seekers, car-buyers...you exist !)

- Informs on the specifications of diverse products/services for purposes of comparison (price, ingredients, conditions...)

- Helps develop an aesthetic sense in consumers: visual/ aural/ textual / ludic creations appreciated en tant que tel (fun factor)

- May underpin national or regional unity through sales discourse (1998 soccer World Cup, Superbowl...)

- Improves consumer reading, comprehension, vocabulary and maths skills (price per kilo, humour, wordplay...)


* This constitues a start, hopefully objective, to be completed with your help if you wish, as we advance. Some of the above possess a flip side of course, being both positive and negative according to one's take on the subject.

* Our next post will (possibly) add to this list and will undertake to establish a list of negative characteristics of advertising. Should go to several tomes...



STUDENT CONTRIBUTIONS (note that there may be some overlap with those above)

Advantages of Advertising, minor and major

- helps people discover that 'undiscovered' need, which he or she was trying to imagine... (Mariana)

- informs people about the health of the company (see institutional ads) or about their own health (see public campaigns for the health sector)(Mariana)

- develops people's creativity and serves as a good subject to talk about with your friends over dinner, during unlimited cellphone calls, or with your bored grandfather (Mariana)

- teaches people how to use a product and understand its function/purpose (Alexandre)

- allows people/gives them the space to compare products to identify which one is the best (Alexandre)

- helps traditional media, such as serious newspapers with decreasing sales and even public TV channels, to survive in times of free online publications. These private sector "cash injections" can help ensure good in-depth journalism (Stefan)

- can be interesting/enjoyable/funny per se; ads entertain us (Romain, Gabriella)

- constitutes a way for elders/senior citizens to keep in touch, at least stay informed, on the evolutions of new technologies (Romain)

- by focussing on environmental problems, may have popularized the issue of global planetary threats, which may then be researched elsewhere... (Tamia)

- contributes to democracy through public debate (Tamia) Example : ?

- presents life (as does consumerism), as simplified, often as caricature, but easy to follow (Farida)

- uses a common "référent culturel"(cultural stereotypes), so as a target, one rarely feels "lost in translation", thanks to common codes and references (in France for example, "Les Trois Mousquetaires", Claude François...)(Farida)

- if, as an adult, you're able to watch an ad and think : "this is manipulation and I am not going to fall into the trap", then Kant himself would have said that you were freeing yourself from the "guardianship" of mainstream thinking. This emancipation wouldn't be possible if advertising didn't exist (Farida)

- allows, just as tyranny or injustice pushes the best of people to become committed freedom fighters (e.g. Nelson Mandela), the most enlightened to become the heroic denouncers of the abuses of advertising and of consumerism in a globalised world (except some Parisian "bobos" and some latino "revolucionarios")(Farida)

- provides students with jobs in the industry (Pedro, Sophie, Pierre, Etienne)

- contributes to many sectors of the economy (without publicity, newspapers, TV etc. wouldn't be economically viable, for it is their main source of income)(Pedro, Sophie)

- encourages special offers and thereby helps the citizen/customer save money. Without advertising, special offers might not exist (Pedro)

- due to the constant flow/wave of commercials, stimulates a critical awareness in people, thus protecting them from commercial intrusions in their private thoughts and opinions; a sort of Darwinian process, a new kind of survival of the fittest : you filter or you drown in the wave (Emilie)

- although not essential to capitalism (one can buy a yoghurt or a shampoo without even having seen ads for those products), advertising exists, creates employment and stimulates growth (Emilie)

- succeeds in creating short stories that last one minute or even less ; to this extent, advertising could be considered as an art, just like the cinema (Maëva, Pierre)

- contributes to creating a TV culture ! (Maëva) Positive ?

- encourages lower prices; increases sales, which leads to higher production and more jobs, thus a virtuous circle (Sophie)

- encourages people's choices and decision-taking (Etienne)
  
- encourages diversity in society. Example : ? (Etienne)

- may provide the financial wherewithal for culturally or socially useful activities (sport teams, schools…), through sponsorship, for example (Lola)

- makes people aware of topical questions around the world or at a national/local level Example : ? (Gabriella)

- can create positive values of solidarity, cooperation, etc. Example : ? (Gabriella)





(à suivre)

BERETS OFF TO BAUDRILLARD

COOL MEMORIES II (1990), Jean Baudrillard, English translation by Chris Turner, Polity Press, 1996

For a change, let's glance through French philosopher Jean Baudrillard's book of musings, thoughts and aphorisms to escape from the constant, unilateral, advertising discourse which my somatised students seem to have assimilated quite successfully ! We are not hors sujet however, for the art of advertising covers the whole gamut of human experience, from cradle to grave. Adman to Deadman : And what sort of headstone would you like on your grave Sir ? Breton granite ? Crème de Touraine ? What choice of graven image Sir ? Advertising slogan ? May we remind you Sir, that for every slogan, our company will plant a tree in a McSchool playground ! Etc.

* Back to the Baudrillard book, from which I have extracted some interesting quotes below :

- " Everything makes us impatient. perhaps we feel remorse for a life which is too long, from the point of view of the species, for the use we make of it." (p4)

- "All these technologies which exalt or exasperate thought merely render it indifferent to itself... Le câblage est accablant." (5)

- "(On idleness)...I detest the bustling activity of my fellow citizens, detest initiative, social responsibility, ambition, competition...They are industrial qualities, whereas idleness is a natural energy." (7)

- "There is something faintly insane about belief, but conviction, which is a redoubling of belief, is downright moronic." (15)

- " The media reconcile us to violence, war, banality. Advertising, this nuptial sacrament and Extreme Unction, reconciles us to our artificial environment... Having himself become a virus, mankind is wrecking his dwelling-place and sanctuary. And the greatest mystery is perhaps that he was made for this, that this was his intended purpose." (23)

- "Hegemony of the commentary, the gloss, the quotation, the reference... We have to root out all metalanguages..." (25)

- "By his own admission, Descartes only thought for two or three minutes a day. The rest of the time he went riding, he lived...we can say of ideas that in Descartes they are to be found in thought and nowhere else, whereas in the modern world they are anywhere but in thought." (25-6)

- "America is not surrealistic at all. It is a universe of simulation or, in other words, a universe without artifice, not even the artifices of dreams... nothing can be imagined any more since everything becomes material, visual... nonetheless, (America has) become a dream universe." (39)

- "California... is a chivalric world with eyes only for its stars, and a courtly world, in thrall to the seduction of business and the love affair with images... It is not permissible to be bored... All new arrivals conform immediately; the solidarity is total. The Californians are committed to a job of advertising just as ascetic as the task of the Mormons with whom they share a geographical and mental space. They are a huge sect devoted to proving happiness..." (41)

- "Communication is to language what reproduction is to sexuality." (52)

- "(Should we) ...cancel the Third World's debt ?... debt is laundered precisely the way the drug trafficker launders money. For debt constitutes a heavy burden of moral culpability for the creditor countries... Thus, in laundering the debt, we launder our consciences as whites; we become whiter than whites." (54)

- "No pity for signs... with their semantic hypocrisy (the constant appearance of having meaning)... they must be taken for what they are - subtle and dangerous products of the world's indifference to us." (59)

- "Sex, lies and videotape. The spec of a class indifferent to life, but obsessed by its lifestyle. Of a class indifferent to itself and its desire, except when seen on videotape...it stands in...for seduction and language." (68) (N.B. videotape then = video today on I-Phones or Youtube)

- "All this artificial intelligence, this tele-sensoriality, screen perception... is the definitive end of illusion... the illusion of existing at any price, the brute illusion of death... all this vanishes right away... into the opposite of illusion, into total disillusion." (85)


* In this final quote, might Baudrillard be wrong in assuming so much ? Perhaps he is indicating - a Cartesian Frenchman under the influence of Californian myth and sun - that at his age and with his experience of life, that this is the impression he gets from the those in the environment in which he finds himself

* Though a smaller sample of society, when observing young French university students, we do not have quite the same impression of their reactions to their techno-environment. They seem to use it more than be used by it, although maybe education and individual character will come into the equation...à voir

HUMAN ANIMALS STILL

Where we seem to digress

Once an animal°, Man has evolved over time into, if one were cynical, a prolific, creative, serial killer. Anyway, into a creature possessing certain human characteristics (emotions, memory, humour, certain rational thought). Unfortunately however, in our humble opinion, he is still only at the hybrid stage of 'human animal' in terms of development

* If all goes well (lol), tomorrow he may accede to the ultimate(?) stage of sentient development on his small planet, that of HUMAN BEING. Too soon today to speak of 'humanity', except in tones of hope and reverence.

* “Throughout our lives as sentient beings, we are constantly under the influence of others and their ideas or creations, even of their personalities”. This highly illuminating comment by an undiscovered genius, rings true for the reason that it does seem to reflect our own life experience. Far from being rational like scientists, LOL, we tend to live and evolve in groups. In a sense, the group is US. A hermit is a nonsense in terms of the 'human' race, for we are condemned to reproduce our species

* Correct me if I am wrong, but given that our gene pool and our experiences are always going to be distinctive whatever the geography or climate, and given our natural gregarity, we are going to be in frequent physical contact with and possibly influenced by, several or many people almost every day

* Nowadays, this interaction can also occur via another medium, where the contact is multiplied by thousands, even millions. Whenever we see a human face in close-up on a TV screen or at the movies (the Carl Dreyer film 'Jeanne d'Arc' is a good example), we receive a quasi-physical shock, for we are witnessing the miracle of a new human being's appearance before us. Surely this is a mirror reflecting our own existence

* On screen however, the impact of the human face will lessen and disappear if re-iterated often, as we see in many Hollywood productions. The Russian Eisenstein, on the other hand, used the close-up shot in such a masterful way as to maintain the illusion of humanity (as in 'Staroye i novoye' - 'La Ligne générale'). But he was a genius. Perhaps witnessing the birth of a human baby might be a parallel to a better understanding of this feeling of 'attraction + shock'

* This daily physical contact with other humans, along with our reactions, may be termed 'interaction', but the term 'interaction' excludes neither influence nor rejection. One can unconsciously fall under the influence of what another says, does or does not do, just as one may consciously reject it

* We wish at this point to quite strongly stress the importance of this concept of influence. Whereas in previous posts, we have gone bananas criticising certain tendencies in advertising today, we wish to state forcibly that as 'human animals', peer influence is a natural tendency

* First proviso : as we know, advertisers do attempt to influence our behaviour by the manipulation of ideas and concepts via different media. Insofar as we, as educated citizens, are aware of this state of affairs, the deal seems reasonable, except of course when advertisers exploit in bad faith the educational ignorance of certain parts of society

* So advertising influence exists, nous l'avons rencontré, but we must proceed to fix the limits to this concept which decent advertisers should respect and responsible authorities should police :

- no discourse in bad faith (David Ogilvy would have agreed with that)

- no knowing exploitation of people's lack of education/ mental deficiencies

- no defacing/ overcrowding of public areas by ad billboards/ hoardings

- no ads in public places which, by their presence, could cause harm or danger to members of the public (e.g. road signs)

- no ads, except public service announcements, in public media and in schools

- no disproportionate volume of ads in private media (fixed limit)

- no use of subversive or secretive methods or technology in advertising messages/ media (e.g. hidden cameras in LCD ad boards at the Paris Etoile metro station)

- no misleading/ subliminal forms of influence masquerading under other names (advertorials, promotional events, games, viral marketing...)

- no crowding/ slowing down of Internet airwaves by aggressive pop-ups and videos

- no excessive advertising volume in any media or in public places where this might bother the citizen in his pursuit of happiness


* This is a non-exhaustive list°° of the areas in which advertising must be reigned in and regulated by formal, governmental bodies (French BVP, NOT !) and independent groups of specialists, academics and concerned citizens

* Influence exists, it is natural to humanity, but it too must be closely overviewed in the communications field, for if not, our society will fall victim°°° to the corruption of power oligarchies of the same ilk as the disastrous financial speculators/ CEOs of recent times. There is no other way.



° Note : do not forget that worms and bees are essential to other species, including Man
°° If you wish to add to the list, please contact me at : william.stephens@sciences-po.org
°°° We often already are...